


Sing the News

by Mistress_Siana



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (Album)
Genre: Angst, Crack, Multi, POV Second Person, Recreational Drug Use, Regeneration, Time War, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistress_Siana/pseuds/Mistress_Siana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You've never grown up quite enough to believe the universe is anything but a playground."</p>
<p>A friend challenged me to write Doctor/Ziggy and make it as angsty as possible. Please don't hit me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing the News

**Author's Note:**

> Contains quotes from 2001: A Space Odyssey and T. Rex.

**Sing the News**

 

The time lock snaps into place, and for a moment the universe is as chaotic and wild as on the day it was born. Galaxies are spinning madly in the back of your mind, and the beauty of it all leaves you speechless.

It takes a while before you feel the weight of what you did.

Turns out your people were no gods after all.

 

You pick the clothes of a man who didn't like you and avoid the mirror. Regeneration confuses you. You don't have Romana's gift for choosing faces and keep cherry-picking pieces from people you meet on your way. Now you won't look at yourself for fear of who else you might see.

 

The walls are closing, space falling apart as an act of defiance against the damage you've done. The TARDIS is speeding frantically through a shifting universe, trying to find her place, and you let her. She is spiteful and finds you a world that is doomed.

-

Earth, an Earth.

London.

-

There are people everywhere, walking quickly in threes or fours. You can feel them in the back of your mind, laughing and oblivious. Unwatched cash machines spit money and everyone has everything except time. Behind broken shop windows, TVs are shrieking like angry electronic children--

_I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it._

It's dark and it's raining, and the one thing that sticks out is the red of an ice cream parlour. That's humans for you; their planet is dying and there's still ice cream in 53 flavours.

This is Earth. It dies in 1979. You're having vanilla.

-

You know the moment you see him that he's what drew you here. You know he's not human. He's leaning against a crumbling wall, drinking - elusively slowly, as though every sip were his first or his last and maybe it is. His grin is lop-sided and his voice is in your head.

'How's the news out there?' he asks.

You think of everyone you lost and say there will be peace.

-

You end up on the floor of an old warehouse, your back against a shabby sofa, picking little threads of wool from a carpet that's been there for longer than you want to know.

He sits with his legs crossed, one eye dark, one eye so blue it makes your head spin. Fine lines of smoke are spiraling between you, and he draws a structural formula into it.

'Benzoylmethylecgonine,' he says. He laughs. 'My people were fair and had sky in their hair.'

You watch his reaction. Pupil dilation, increased heart beat and blood pressure. He's physically human, but his mind is alien.

'Is that your body?' you ask.

He gives you a crooked smile that is half predator, half teenager grown up too fast.

'I didn't steal it', he says. 'I made it. I love it, it does amazing things.' He crosses and uncrosses his legs, flexes his fingers and folds his arms behind his head. Then his face becomes serious.

'Do you want to know what you look like?'

You watched your people run through new bodies and new minds and die before they knew who they were, and it made them mad. You remember Romana, your brother, the woman you married, the children you survived, the regenerations they used up and--

There's a pause. He's watching you. Your hands are shaking.

'My planet is gone,' you say.

 

Your head falls back against the sofa and you're staring at the ceiling, watching coils of smoke dissolve above your head. Your hands clutch at the carpet as though you're afraid you'll somehow fall through time and space if you let go. You close your eyes to clear your head. It's strange, you think. You've never grown up quite enough to believe the universe is anything but a playground.

You can feel him crawl over to you with animal grace. Feel him sit down right beside you, feel a bony hand upon your thigh.

'Open your eyes,' he says. 'Look at me.'

His voice is soft and low, melodious, and you try to pick out traces of an alien language behind perfect sing-song English.

You obey, taking in the details of the ceiling with sharpened senses, smell the air, feel the electricity, feel a split second like eternity, before you move your head and look at him. He smiles at you, teeth like bared fangs, and then you can see it: the alien, the alien eyes, and yourself, for a second, mirrored in their darkness.

You take his face in your hands, palms and thumbs against razor cheekbones, and it occurs to you that you haven't touched anyone since.

Your own hand looks alien to you. Crude. The hand that made it happen. You feel his bones just as you felt the buttons you pushed and the wires you connected; there's no kind of destruction you haven't seen, no kind of destruction you haven't caused, you feel the softness of his skin and think of death. His hair is red like the grass from your childhood; you reach out to grab a handful, let it spill through your fingers, pull him closer, and kiss him. Against your lips, you can feel him smile.

You're tired of being the one who makes things happen. For once, you want the storm to come over you and wash you away.

-

The air is buzzing again, voices from the other side of the wall blend with the rough mechanic drone of badly repaired TVs.

_My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it._

Little waves that go out into space and pick up the humming of stars on their way.

-

You're on the floor together, his body draped over yours. Your fingertips are dancing across his hips, drawing something on his body, you don't know what.

There's his voice again, soft in the back of your mind: 'who are you?'

'I'm the destroyer of worlds,' you say.

And then you laugh.

It doesn't mean anything, there are no words for what you are. The terror of your name transcends the power of letters; you open your mouth but there is nothing to say.

You kiss him instead, grab a handful of hair and draw him closer, unearthing an ancient language of teeth and nails and spit. You hold his head in your hands and prey on his thoughts, blur the periphery and project a picture: you're eternal and ever-changing, a black hole falling through the skies; you drag your teeth across his body and carve names into his skin, of long gone stars and stars that never were, of everyone you loved, everyone you lost, and your own.

'I'm the destroyer of worlds,' you say again, softly into his hair, and this times it resonates. 'And who are you?'

He's shaking, and it takes him a while to answer.

'I'm stardust, then.'

 

You're spent and tired, way too tired to be cruel. You want to save this world. You need to.

'Tell them,' you say. 'Tell everyone. Scream, cry, or sing the news, whatever makes them listen. You must.'

His body is featherlight against yours. You place a kiss on the curve of his neck and smile.

-

The door falls shut behind you and you don't turn back. The buzzing of TVs is annoying and you raise your screwdriver to shut it up.

You don't know where to go so you go on.


End file.
